Amazon unveils Amazon One, a new biometric technology that allows shoppers to pay using their palm, to be first implemented at two Amazon Go stores in Seattle
Amazon wants shoppers at its stores — and those of other retailers — to pay by palm with Amazon One. Amazon
Shoppers at the two Seattle Amazon Go stores can now link a palm to a payment card and check out by hovering their hand, making Amazon's cashierless stores the proving ground for its own biometric hardware.
The pilot gives Amazon a live dataset on enrollment rates and transaction speed ahead of any pitch to outside retailers named in the announcement.
Second-order effects
Whole Foods becomes the scale test bed: once proven at Go, the tech moves into Amazon's grocery banner, normalizing palm payment for mainstream food retail rather than novelty convenience stores.
Other US retailers, stadiums, and venues face a choice between building rival biometric checkout or licensing Amazon's — a decision the WSJ coverage shows playing out amid privacy scrutiny.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, Amazon One evolves from a payment method into an identity layer spanning payments, age verification, and physical access control — with retailers and employers adopting Amazon's biometric infrastructure much as they adopted its cloud.
Widespread palm-data collection by a dominant retailer raises the prospect of regulatory attention on biometric privacy, which competitors would then have to build compliance around.
The trend: Retail is moving from card-based checkout toward platform-owned biometric identity, with Amazon converting its own stores into the distribution channel for a service it intends to sell to everyone else.
Pretty wild how Amazon is the only company to really lean into 2020. Surveillance drones at home, monitoring the tone of your speech, and now scanning your palm print... https://twitter.com/...
@adamkotsko
Adam Kotsko on x
I have my own personal phone set up for fingerprint recognition, but what creeps me out about biometric identification and payment more generally is that if it gets “hacked,” I feel like I would have very little recourse. I can't change my fingerprint like I can my password. http…
@charlesarthur
Charles Arthur on x
Figuring out the threat and surveillance models of this will be quite a thing. Amazon wants to license it, not just use it. https://twitter.com/...
@marknotfound
Mark Evans on x
the greatest trick tech companies are pulling with payment methods like this and apple pay etc is that using cash or a credit/debit card is complicated and this is easier somehow https://twitter.com/...
@sirsteven
Steven Millward on x
Interesting to see Amazon steer clear of face scanning. it's clearly banking on palm scanning being non-creepy for people https://twitter.com/...
@somospostpc
Alex B on x
Google One Apple One Amazon One Microsoft... 365 https://twitter.com/...
@tomwarren
Tom Warren on x
Amazon One turns your hand into a credit card. Amazon is hoping this new palm recognition tech will be used in stores, stadiums, and office buildings to let people use their palm to pay / scan. Details here: https://www.theverge.com/...
@whyischester
Chester SA on x
But why .. I mean seriously, anybody doing this kind of thing has their phone already, why not just stick with Apple Pay or whatever https://twitter.com/...
@ganeshkulkarni
Ganesh on x
Google One Apple One Now - Amazon One https://twitter.com/...
@wongmjane
Jane Manchun Wong on x
It basically means “we'll upload your palm print to AWS” https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@vladsavov
Vlad Savov on x
Amazon's going full “what even is privacy” dystopia on us with palm-reading payments and ID, hot on the heels of flying home drones and mood-detecting wristbands. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@delrey
Jason Del Rey on x
Amazon's hand-scanning payment tech is here. Launching first in Amazon stores, Amazon believes other retailers, including competitors, will use it, too. The big picture: Amazon wants a cut of physical retail happening outside its walls, just like online https://www.vox.com/...
@tprstly
Theo Priestley on x
Stop normalising biometric data collection into the hands of tech giants. JFC wake up. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/ ...